Training description:The IT Consultant for SMEs : Software COTS selection job role aims at describing the required skills for an IT consultant helping SMEs and small organisations to select a packaged software solution.

The main skills addressed in this training are related to System and Software Requirements Engineering and to Call For Tenders processing.

By applying to this training the trainee will learn

how to elicitate system and software requirements related to business processes,

how to describe them in a synthetic document,

how to explore the software market for finding packaged software potentially answering the requirements,

and how to objectively select the best packaged software and service provider by performing a call for tenders.

This training requires experience or knowledge in the field of Software Project Management or Requirements Engineering.

Training Structure:

The training lasts 2 full working days (+/- 16 hours) and proposes 2 skills units each including five learning elements.

The skills unit Requirements Engineering includes Learning Elements related to Business Analysis, Requirements elicitation, Interviews Management and Software and System Requirements Specification Writing.

Context:In many European areas, economy is characterized by a large number of SMEs, and, in particular, of Very Small Enterprises (VSE). More and more the vitality and even the survival of these companies is heavily dependingon how they can improve their business activities (logistics, customers management, accounting & finances ...) with IT opportunities

COTS (Software packages) acquisition is one of the most important IT-related activities in SMEs. The higher demand for COTS business solutions is often one of the following:

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

CMS (Content Management System)

DMS (Document Management System)

CRM (Customers relationships management)

The offer for such COTS software solutions is high. In most cases, there exists an effective IT solution for solving SMEs business issues. The challenge is to find the right one! The right one means the COTS software solution that suits best SMEs' context and needs.

However we observe that if SMEs' managers are excellent in their business, they lack competences in the IT domain and often, under-estimate and miss opportunities. As a consequence we developed the job role of an IT consultantexpert in COTS selection for SMEs and VSEs.